My practice has moved! After a million years, I have moved out of my dear office suite and have moved north. They say north is the place of mystery and now I live there! Hello, mystery!

Here is my new office address: 1019 21st St. Anacortes, WA. 98221

Now, if you are a Facebook friend, you may have noticed that I have a fundraiser happening through Together Rising, to raise money to keep great lawyers working on bringing the children back to their families who are at the border. I’m doing this so I don’t do ‘irrational’ things, like drive down to Arizona, pick up all the children who are without their parents, and hand deliver them myself. Staying active during this personal and cultural trauma happening is the only way we will move towards healing and not get stuck in the horror. Doing a fundraiser, for now, will suffice. I mention this because I’m GIVING AWAY MASSAGES EVERY WEDNESDAY THROUGH AUGUST. All you have to do is donate to my fundraiser. I find this to be a win-win for all of us. It gives me something to do with my hands besides wringing them. And, if you are like most of the people living around you, YOU COULD USE A MASSAGE.

But I’m far away from my dear clients on Whidbey! And those here in Anacortes don’t know me yet! What a great time to come see me then! A visit from an old Whidbey friend or meeting a new Anacortes client….get on in here!

I hope you’ll consider coming in and helping these children get home to their families at the same time. I look forward to seeing you. Questions? Just click the ‘contact me’ tab above and fill out the one time form. I’ll get your message right away! And thank you!

Between the inky black universe and the crisp white explosion of stars, an infinite number of possibilities begin. Grab them, any one of them, it doesn’t really matter. Wherever you start is exactly right.

The Sombrero Galaxy

The gravitational pull will lead you home, vibrations in your spider web bones. It feels like a first kiss, or Christmas, or a dip in an icy lake after a hot day, or seeing a whale off to starboard, grand body so quiet it cracks you open inside. This pull you are following is your destiny. But destiny is not pre-determined. Destiny shapes as you form words to articulate this longing. Your Stillness finds Itself emerging into words and, like rungs in a ladder, your next steps materialize. Follow this. It is just for you, a world created as you are creating. It leads you home. Don’t fret, love, it will lead you home.

The isolation you made for yourself to feel safe is a lie. Break through the walls you are trapped behind. Reach your hand out to grab another’s. Feel the power of wanting to be reached in the strength of your grip. It’s okay to want help. Take this journey with loving hands at your back, holding your weight when you stumble, smoothing the worry lines from your face, massaging the tension from your shoulders. Ground yourself in the help of others, your oasis of rest. Receive their loving touch and let it melt your bonds. Move freely. We are never meant to travel alone for the entirety of our journey. That’s the secret I can offer you. Write these helpers in to your story. They don’t know they are in your play. Cast them so they can find their gifts in being your ally.

And then, you will find yourself in a place of disconnect. It will feel dark and lonely. It is the natural way of things to come to this place, so call on your allies to meet you when you come out. You will come out of this, dear one, don’t worry. It only feels like you won’t. Sometimes we swing so far away from our pull, we feel like we are lost. You aren’t. It is your aphelion. The blackness out in that part of the universe awaits its own storytelling. You will feel the gravitational pull again, reminding you that you were never ever separated from the perfect alignment that makes up the galaxies.

I forget stuff. A lot. The most insufferable forgetting I have are the life lessons. I’m forever saying to myself, “But I KNOW that already! How did I forget?” Things like, I’m enough. I’ve got something to offer the world. I’m not stupid. I’m pretty solid with knowing where my car keys are, though, so there’s a high five for me there.

Lately, I am determined NOT to forget that everything will be okay. I don’t say this as a way to avoid the realities of the world, I say this because it is the most true thing I have learned, again and again. Hard things are happening. There seems to be no end to hard things. However, we do not need to allow the hard things to take us under and render us useless. I’ve learned to find the spark, the creative voice inside that brings forth the change that I want to see, that I know is meant to happen. Here’s a tip I’m remembering from the last time I forgot: if it seems like there are only two choices, wait. Sit with it. Don’t make a decision until you see more than two options. This is where creativity becomes our best ally. Like a dandelion that somehow took root in the cracks of cement, we, too, can find ways through the hardness.

Photo by: elizaveta.typepad.com

Let me ask you one thing about stuff that is hard. Do you notice the difference in hard stuff? There is the kind of hard that comes with working a job you hate, or having the same arguments about the equality and rights of others to people who don’t see people this way, or the same old family issues that yank your chain every damn time you speak to your family. These examples are one kind of hard. Let’s call it hard-hard. Then, there’s another kind of hard. There is the hard of leaving your work and life to go sit with a dying friend, or to set up camp to support resistance of the Dakota Access Pipeline, or finally getting in to therapy to do some deep healing work. When we follow our passions, our kindness, our purpose (or whatever little tickle happens in your body that tells you to go do that thing that feels big and meaningful), something shifts. This hard, let’s call it hard-shift, moves something. It moves us in to connection with others. It moves mountains of no-way outs in to moving forward.

I’m okay with forgetting the hard-hard stuff. I’m not okay with forgetting the hard-shift stuff. So why do I do it? Why do I let the hard-hard be so real when it’s not? I don’t know, but my writing friend, Michelle Welles, gave me pause when she wrote this piece I share with you here at the beginning of this blog. And that is, maybe forgetting is part of the process. Forgetting is not some separate experience keeping me from my path, rather, it is part of the dance of change and healing and meaning. It feels good to remember something that was once forgotten. Like that song from high school you forgot about, or the ice-cream you forgot you purchased that you stumble upon after dinner. Score!! It is savored more than when you first experienced it.

I recently forgot that I was a teacher. I forgot that my joy comes from taking my emotive, non-linear living and spiritual practice, and playing with it, sharing my ups and downs with you all as a way to say, “Yeah, me too. Stuff sucks sometimes. But look what I found!” We are not the same, but we are similar in our desire to love and be loved, to know that we matter. I forgot this for a long time, and I guess fear and doubt and not enoughness filled in the gaps. After speaking to a friend, it came to me. What I had forgotten came back and I let it fill me inside all the way in to the nooks and crannies. It’s taking root, again. And I know this little bloom is going to be a wild weed because she is familiar. Ah, the joy of remembering again!